AT&T-Mozilla “WebPhone” gives a glimpse of the dumb pipe future

Using WebRTC to deliver calls, texts, and video messaging through a browser.

By combining Firefox's new WebRTC support, Ericsson's Web Communication Gateway, and AT&T's API Platform, Mozilla has demonstrated calls, text messages, and video calls all being made from within the browser. It's all in a proof-of-concept application AT&T calls WebPhone, and Mozilla will demonstrate WebPhone next week at the Mobile World Congress conference.

With the right phone operator support, the plugin-free technology can potentially offer a full range of telephony services through the browser. This decouples traditional phone services from the phone itself, potentially enabling access to the phone and text messages from anywhere with an Internet connection and WebRTC-enabled browser. The demo is currently limited in scope, with AT&T planning to roll out an alpha version of the full API "in the near future."

AT&T describes WebPhone as a "vision for the future of seamlessly integrated communication." More than that, however, it's a vision for the network operator as dumb pipe provider. Put that browser on a phone—perhaps one running Firefox OS—and you can do away with the voice connection entirely. Just place everything, voice and data alike, over the data connection.

For end users, the advantage is universal access. For example, if visiting a foreign country you could pick up a cheap data SIM on the foreign operator, but still be able to place and receive calls and texts on your domestic phone number. Receiving a text while working on a desktop PC could simply pop up an on-screen alert with no need to rummage around in your pocket or purse to see why your phone vibrated.

WebPhone could also be seen as a precursor to giving traditional mobile telephone systems more of the flexibility offered by systems like Skype and Google Voice. It should be relatively simple to build the kind of voicemail recording and transcription service that Google Voice offers on top of a WebPhone-like platform (AT&T's APIs already provide some of these capabilities through software from Tropo). It has the same universality of access that Skype offers: you can make calls from your number even on someone else's phone or PC. And I can't be alone in preferring to make phone calls by Skype so that I can use my headset; routing regular calls through the PC would be welcome for that alone.

Whether providers like AT&T embrace this future is an open question. The flexibility means users could just as well pick competing voice services—as they already do for international calls—leaving their network operators as nothing more than a dumb pipe for data.

Skype's success suggests this will happen one way or another anyway. By promoting this kind of technology and offering its APIs, AT&T could be ensuring that its voice network still has a role to play in the dumb pipe future.

I would say this is likely the future of everything. Telcos could get rid of their switching centers, cable companies could get rid of their massive TV head-ends. All you'd get is a data connection, either over the air, on a coax or a fiber. Use the app of your choice for telephone, TV, whatever, wherever. Leave it up to content providers (TV, radio, phone, etc.) to get their goods out there as a stream, other entities to provide 2-way voice or voice+video or messenging/text services. We may end up with monopolies on the dumb data pipe we get, but there will certainly be a diverse number of options for all the types of services we may want to get delivered across that pipe. We may even finally get "a la carte" TV. Get whatever "channel" you want, when you want, and on the device you want, without paying for 973 channels you've never even looked at.

Verizon is combatting this by making voice and texting free, but capping the data plan.

My verizon plan has unlimited voice and texting but only 1GB of data a month and it still costs me $90/month. If I were to adopt WebRTC my calls would cut into the GB data. If I call via Verizon it's free.

Well, does this mean that your phone number will be replaced by an IP address or I dunno, a username? And more importantly, will this eliminate International Roaming, or will carriers find a way to keep that in place?

It sounds nice in theory; but in practice I fear that the quality of the voice service may be low, because mobile operators give a very low priority to data in contrast with voice. They do it already today, and may have even more incentives to do it with the arrival of "WebPhones".

It sounds nice in theory; but in practice I fear that the quality of the voice service may be low, because mobile operators give a very low priority to data in contrast with voice. They do it already today, and may have even more incentives to do it with the arrival of "WebPhones".

I hope that I am wrong...

I don't use voice enough to really know but it seems to me that already Skype's voice quality is way better than regular call, even when used on an iPhone.

Receiving a text while working on a desktop PC could simply pop up an on-screen alert with no need to rummage around in your pocket or purse to see why your phone vibrated.

I already have this with Apple's iMessage. My girlfriend texts my phone, and a window pops up on my laptop with her message. I thought it was a bit of a gimmick at first, but it's been very useful - lets me send a quick reply to her phone without interrupting my work on my laptop. Also any reply from my laptop is auto-inserted in the right place in the texted conversation on my phone. I don't have an iPad, but it has the same system. Of course, it's only useful with contacts who also have iPhones.

Other uses - texting her a pic from my laptop, or if I want to send a lengthy text but don't feel like typing it out on my iphone's keyboard.

Am sure someone will say the same system is available on Android - and I hope so - competition is good.

The only way to make providers dumb pipes is to make them actually restricted to just providing the pipes, instead of also having any control over devices offered with contracts, altered versions (iAndroid Evo Galaxy 4G LTE Plus+ OPTIMUS PRIMUS Verizon Basic), and any other influence between the manufacturer and customer. Their control has been limiting direct innovation/competition between OEMs with lack of choice for the customer as a result. No thanks, I'd rather just seperately buy the phone and a seperate service. Keep the dumb pipes competing between each other as dumb pipes, not as phone retailers.

This kinda sounds like chrome OS for a phone. I would have to hear more about it before i pass judgement, but chrome OS doesn't interest me since most of what i do is not in a browser. Granted, i do less on my phone, but still...

I don't get the point of this experiment. There's no reason that 'phone' voice and text transmissions couldn't be sent over the internet independently. Why would a web browser be necessary to make that possible?

I don't get the point of this experiment. There's no reason that 'phone' voice and text transmissions couldn't be sent over the internet independently. Why would a web browser be necessary to make that possible?

Portability perhaps, so that you don't need to write one application for each and every OS/platform that the user might use.

I'm expecting the price of this to be absurd enough to ease AT&T's control anxieties...

Hopefully I'm wrong.

I think the point is there won't be any choice. There is SOME competition in this area. At this point a cell network is basically a commodity, so eventually market forces will make its pricing commodity pricing as well. If AT&T doesn't give you what you want for a reasonable price then Sprint, etc WILL. In fact IIRC Sprint has unlimited data plans RIGHT NOW, huh, what a coincidence!

Of course it IS possible that providers could offer different quality tiers of service. If you're well-heeled you may be able to pay extra for prioritized packet delivery service, etc. I suspect this sort of thing won't work in the long run though unless it is a lot more expensive to deliver such a service, which it probably won't be.

People wonder what the catch is? Of course the carriers will lobby/find a way to prioritize their VoIP traffic while degrading all others, and tie it to their (overpriced/capped) data service. They may be idiots, but they're not stupid.

Justin-Case wrote:

We may even finally get "a la carte" TV. Get whatever "channel" you want, when you want, and on the device you want, without paying for 973 channels you've never even looked at.

I have to say this idea appeals to me, if only because I cling to the time honoured idea of a unified comms stack where the Network Layer is decoupled from the Application Layer.

As I understand it, since 3G was adopted there isn't any difference between voice and data traffic when it's transmitted (I think GSM allocates frames differently), so it shouldn't make any technical difference...

Except bandwidth is limited to such an extent that it has to be the overriding concern of any operator. Can anyone assure us that WebRTC doesn't (or wouldn't, sometimes) use significantly more bandwidth than the operator controlled voice protocol? I would imagine that even a 1% additional overhead is unacceptable in important cases such as sports games, transport hubs etc.

It's in the interests of operators to be able to charge uses as much as possible, and this means selling us new and exciting services, but it's also in operators' interests to maximise call success and minimise throughput.

I imagine that WebRTC calls will stay firmly in the 'Data' column of your bill, and will work out much worse value if made via the cellular network. So if this is going to take off it I imagine it would be on an automatically switching "use when wi-fi is available, otherwise use regular voice protocol" basis.

I think the point is there won't be any choice. There is SOME competition in this area. At this point a cell network is basically a commoditycartel, so eventually market forces will make its pricing commoditycartel pricing as well. If AT&T doesn't give you what you want for a reasonable price then Sprint, etc WILL. In fact IIRC Sprint has unlimited data plans RIGHT NOW, huh, what a coincidence!

Of course it IS possible that providers could offer different quality tiers of service. If you're well-heeled you may be able to pay extra for prioritized packet delivery service, etc. I suspect this sort of thing won't work in the long run though unless it is a lot more expensive to deliver such a service, which it probably won't be.

Fixed that a little bit for you. You might want to take a look and see what people in Europe pay in general, prices here are a joke. Also, I like my net neutrality, thank you very much.

I doubt AT&T sees this as making them a dumb pipe. To the contrary, they are going to be selling you the phone number, access to the phone network (even if you place the call on your data line it has to switch over to phone before reaching the person you call or send a text to), etc.

From AT&T's perspective, far from becoming a dumb pipe, this is about being a competitor to Skype and similar services. It's about maintaining control of the pipe.

I'm dreaming probably, but it would be great if an alternative wireless WAN technology arrived that was an order of magnitude less costly to build out infrastructure for, so that a pure-data network could emerge to obsolete the existing voice carriers. Phone numbers tied to a single device, SIM, or landline service address should just die.

Receiving a text while working on a desktop PC could simply pop up an on-screen alert with no need to rummage around in your pocket or purse to see why your phone vibrated.

I already have this with Apple's iMessage. My girlfriend texts my phone, and a window pops up on my laptop with her message. I thought it was a bit of a gimmick at first, but it's been very useful - lets me send a quick reply to her phone without interrupting my work on my laptop. Also any reply from my laptop is auto-inserted in the right place in the texted conversation on my phone. I don't have an iPad, but it has the same system. Of course, it's only useful with contacts who also have iPhones.

Other uses - texting her a pic from my laptop, or if I want to send a lengthy text but don't feel like typing it out on my iphone's keyboard.

Am sure someone will say the same system is available on Android - and I hope so - competition is good.

Not really. The closest is using google voice and enabling a setting that allows texts to be forwarded to your emails. You can then reply via email. The weird thing I find is that google voice assigns a different number to your contact. So when replying, you reply to a different number...but your contact's name is clearly stated so you know who it is going to. It is not as seamless as iMessage; but also does not have the restriction of the sender being in the same ecosystem

I doubt AT&T sees this as making them a dumb pipe. To the contrary, they are going to be selling you the phone number, access to the phone network (even if you place the call on your data line it has to switch over to phone before reaching the person you call or send a text to), etc.

From AT&T's perspective, far from becoming a dumb pipe, this is about being a competitor to Skype and similar services. It's about maintaining control of the pipe.

This. I believe they are trying to get in the game here. I bet the "final" implementation will require your number being attached to the account, and then you will be charged voice minutes (in addition to data) for the privilege.

I already have this with Apple's iMessage. My girlfriend texts my phone, and a window pops up on my laptop with her message. I thought it was a bit of a gimmick at first, but it's been very useful - lets me send a quick reply to her phone without interrupting my work on my laptop. Also any reply from my laptop is auto-inserted in the right place in the texted conversation on my phone. I don't have an iPad, but it has the same system. Of course, it's only useful with contacts who also have iPhones.

It's only really useful for those who are happy with an end-to-end Apple ecosystem. If you used a Windows based computer you wouldn't be able to have the same workflow just the same as an Apple computer user who used Android.

That's the most frustrating thing (to me) about the past few years of new technology. We're ending up with some specific problems being solved but they're being solved in a vertically integrated fashion instead of a universal, interoperable solution. Mozilla, at least, seems to be championing a new concept that could be cross compatible if other developers/manufacturers were to adopt it. Though I'm leery of HTML+CSS for app development, they aren't exactly the most performance oriented languages (see Facebook before and after the native code rewrite for both phone systems).

Well, does this mean that your phone number will be replaced by an IP address or I dunno, a username? And more importantly, will this eliminate International Roaming, or will carriers find a way to keep that in place?

that's pretty much how it already works with iMessage. you've got text, image, video and voice calling. it's on your phone, tablet, and computer. conversations are synced so you can start talking on the phone and transfer over to your laptop later. you can "call" someone by phone number or email address.

of course it only works with apple hardware. as long as everybody you want to talk to has some form of apple device you're good but i realize that is not realistic or desirable for everybody.

it's getting to the point where i'm seriously contemplating buying an ipod touch for my parents as they are the lone holdouts among my friends/family.

i think it's clear a platform-agnostic iMessage-type service is in our collective future.

I already have this with Apple's iMessage. My girlfriend texts my phone, and a window pops up on my laptop with her message. I thought it was a bit of a gimmick at first, but it's been very useful - lets me send a quick reply to her phone without interrupting my work on my laptop. Also any reply from my laptop is auto-inserted in the right place in the texted conversation on my phone. I don't have an iPad, but it has the same system. Of course, it's only useful with contacts who also have iPhones.

Other uses - texting her a pic from my laptop, or if I want to send a lengthy text but don't feel like typing it out on my iphone's keyboard.

Am sure someone will say the same system is available on Android - and I hope so - competition is good.

It is, as Google Voice works on any phone or computer.

There's a plugin for at least Chrome as well, so you don't actually have to have Google Voice' web page open. Google Voice is the usefully well-developed version of iMessage.

Oh, and from Chrome (at least), I can make voice calls from the GMail page on my computer. Shows up just like I'm calling from my phone. That means that the only device from which I can't make "phone" calls is my tablet. And I think there's a third-party app for Android that makes that happen.

Receiving a text while working on a desktop PC could simply pop up an on-screen alert with no need to rummage around in your pocket or purse to see why your phone vibrated.

I already have this with Apple's iMessage. My girlfriend texts my phone, and a window pops up on my laptop with her message. I thought it was a bit of a gimmick at first, but it's been very useful - lets me send a quick reply to her phone without interrupting my work on my laptop. Also any reply from my laptop is auto-inserted in the right place in the texted conversation on my phone. I don't have an iPad, but it has the same system. Of course, it's only useful with contacts who also have iPhones.

Other uses - texting her a pic from my laptop, or if I want to send a lengthy text but don't feel like typing it out on my iphone's keyboard.

Am sure someone will say the same system is available on Android - and I hope so - competition is good.

Not really. The closest is using google voice and enabling a setting that allows texts to be forwarded to your emails. You can then reply via email. The weird thing I find is that google voice assigns a different number to your contact. So when replying, you reply to a different number...but your contact's name is clearly stated so you know who it is going to. It is not as seamless as iMessage; but also does not have the restriction of the sender being in the same ecosystem

...what are you smoking? Even on my old Windows Mobile phone (I've had a Droid X and a Galaxy Nexus since then), Google Voice SMS just showed up as SMS. It's perfectly seemless on Android, or even on the computer.

...Not really. The closest is using google voice and enabling a setting that allows texts to be forwarded to your emails. ...

What are you talking about? G-chat works seamlessly between computers and phones. I believe there's an iOS app that can tap into it as well.

To be fair (if you are talking about Google Talk), it's just IM, so an SMS doesn't automatically get delivered there. That is the case here anyway, no Google Voice SMS in .fi. Having said that, I really like it, especially the fact that it's built on the XMPP standard so I can use any compatible client.

ICE provides a verification of communication consent. This means that media packets will only be sent to abrowser that is expecting the traffic. A malicious web application might try to trick a browser into sending media to an Internet host that is not a party to communication. This type of attack is known as a Denial of Service or DOS flooding attack. ICE will prevent this from succeeding since media will never be sent unless the ICE exchange completes successfully.

...Not really. The closest is using google voice and enabling a setting that allows texts to be forwarded to your emails. ...

What are you talking about? G-chat works seamlessly between computers and phones. I believe there's an iOS app that can tap into it as well.

To be fair (if you are talking about Google Talk), it's just IM, so an SMS doesn't automatically get delivered there. That is the case here anyway, no Google Voice SMS in .fi. Having said that, I really like it, especially the fact that it's built on the XMPP standard so I can use any compatible client.

I have trouble keeping track of the names of all Google services, to be honest. But yes, it's an IM, just like iMessage, only cross-platform.

SMS is pretty much e dead standard to me, due to the greed of the telcos. I'm not talking as much about price, as about free interoperability with internet-based messaging solutions. While I still use it, it's not in volume and I always consider the alternatives first.

I like to point out that most of us spend more than half their day in an area that has access to an internet connection (i.e. home, work).

So you signUp to one of these Telcos. Great for those inBetween times when no wifi signal.

At home, at work, you switch to the wifi connection. WebRTC works great. You receive your calls, videos, text, etc etc. You save money on your dataplan.

InBetween you switch back. Repeat.

I, for one, am skipping the telcos altogether. Smart phone with only wifi. Coffee shop, work, home, bar. For those inBetweens I read a book. The key is to find (map) locations that have wifi through your daily commute.